“Apple will announce as part of its special media event Tuesday a new family of MacBooks that will abandoned Intel’s integrated graphics chipsets for those part of NVIDIA’s new mobile platform,” Kasper Jade and Aidan Malley report for AppleInsider.
“People familiar with the matter say, at a minimum, the 13-inch systems will adopt chipsets from NVIDIA’s MCP79 platform, as was predicted earlier this week by technology journalist Ryan Shrout,” Jade and Malley report. “Word of the switch validates claims first published by AppleInsider earlier this summer, speficially that Apple would drop Intel’s stock designs for the first time since the transition to x86 processors in 2006.”
“Apple reportedly will use NVIDIA’s MCP79 platform which “is believed to use a new set of GeForce 9300 and 9400 series integrated mainboard graphics processors. Regardless of which variant Apple uses, both are expected to support the latest visual effects and will theoretically blow past the performance of not just the Intel GMA X3100 video on Apple’s current MacBooks but also the GMA 4500MHD found on newer notebooks using Intel’s reference hardware,” Jade and Aidan Malley report.
“Separately, Digg founder Kevin Rose is claiming in a yet-to-be-shown live Diggnation episode that the new 13-inch MacBooks will include Blu-ray at some level,”Jade and Aidan Malley report.
More in the full article here.
Also, more info via an AppleInsider report from yesterday, “NVIDIA platform claimed likely for new MacBook line,” here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]
“…will theoretically blow past the performance of not just the Intel GMA X3100 video on Apple’s current MacBooks but also the GMA 4500MHD found on newer notebooks…” The real question is, will Apple keep its graphics hardware up-to-date with the rest of the industry or will it still be using NVIDIA’s MCP79 a year from now?
Sorry, I’ve given up on seeing Blu-Ray in any Mac, ever.
‘Mac Blu-ray’ has an odd ring to it……
And 1 year from now, will NVIDIA’s GPU’s be burning up (again), causing thousands of logic board failures (again)?
Kevin Rose is bored. He has nothing else to do, so, he pulls things from his a** and says he has inside information. So he was sorta right on the Nano……big deal.
Kevin, go and fix digg. That is what you should be doing you hit whore.
BlueRay is an added expense that cannot be justified. I hardly ever use my CD/DVD drive except the occasional software install and that can be done with DVD sharing. For HD video, I can use Apple TV or just download it on iTunes.
Why should Apple ever put Blue Ray into their machines? We have so many other ways to get HD.
Robert Evans: Perfect example of user with Mac trait #56 and #155. Keep living the Mac dream though.
Robert, when you come into the real world and start really using your Mac for something besides just entertainment, you might find that you come to appreciate being able to back up REALLY big files to disk as a second backup method. Big backups is the #1 reason I want Blu-ray. But I’ll take the movies, too. Not all of us decided to get an early model of AppleTV. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be able to order yours without Blu-ray. By the way, tried tabs in your browser yet?
The more I learn about nvidia’s graphics platform, the more I hope Apple will adopt it. I’ll have to wait until Monday to find out.
I don’t think these notebooks are the “brick”. I think the “brick” is an HDTV with integrated TV.
Better graphics would be awesome but THE COMBO DRIVE MUST DIE.
Either the price goes down, or the combo drive dies, but not both. Don’t expect an Apple notebook with a super drive below $1,000. It simply can’t happen (let me rephrase that: it is extremely unlikely to happen).
I don’t see why bluray can’t be an option on the high end 17 inch MBP (it would go nicely with the optional hd screen)
Why? There are $500 PC laptops that have “Superdrives” in them.
Having any model of laptop without a Superdrive in it and less than 2GB of RAM is simply unacceptable, at ANY price point. There are no other laptops on the market without superdrive and 2GB of RAM these days. Laptops half the cost of an entry level MacBook have these things.
I don’t see why Bluray can’t be an option on all notebooks. Just price it quite high.
John
I don’t see why Bluray can’t be an option on all notebooks. Just price it quite high.
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Because Leopard and iLife 08 do not support Blu-Ray authoring, and there is currently not a single Apple display (Cinema or Notebook) that is capable of displaying Blu-Ray content because none are HDCP compliant.
There is a lot more involved than just plopping in a Blu-Ray drive and expecting it to work..
Snow Leopard and iLife 09 will likely offer Blu-Ray support..
Oh yeah, None of Apple’s Pro apps support Blu-Ray authoring either.
Apple needs (as any other constructor) to propose the best solutions of the time.
I’m sure Intel and Apple work hard on new and inedit components to have the overall best results in computing on Macs.
By now Intel has just to bring out better integrated graphic chipsets.
Just make the Blu-Ray drives external USB2 devices for all 10.5.6 Macs at huge cost. A Combo Blu-Ray as expensive and a RW Blu-Ray as exorbitant. That way the MacBook price is kept low for those who don’t want it, and available for those who do. And it would mean you don’t need to buy a new Mac or new Blu-Ray drive for every one of your older Macs.
HG Wells:
Using tabs while browsing is neither a sign of advancement, intelligence or superiority. It’s a matter of personal opinion. You’re a pompous antagonist.
Oh, that was my personal opinion.
@ HolyMackerel : +1 . Even professionnaly, there’ll be no real need for Blu-Ray support before at least a year! (By then, externals will be lot cheaper).
@ meh : +1 . I hate and never use tabs.
@ Hg Wells
Ever heard of an external optical drive? A network RAID? Ever heard about external hard drives?
No?
Just asking.
Video of this new platform has been reposted on youtube
I agree, Apple can’t refer to the drive as “Mac Blu Ray”
“A Combo Blu-Ray as expensive”
$94
” and a RW Blu-Ray as exorbitant.”
$134
And discount all those prices by the $25 retail cost of the “SuperDrive” or $17 cost of the “Combo Drive”. putting a “Superdrive” in everything should cost mac owners less than $8 extra on a machine. Blu-Ray player capability would add about $70 to the cost of your Mac, or $110 to be able to burn them.
And these are retail quantity one prices, what you expect to pay, not what Apple pays for 2 million/quarter.
Whether we like it or not an 1.6Gb HD Movie from iTunes and a 30+ HD movie on Blu-ray are not comparable. I welcome blu-ray to the mac and see it’s huge potential. Apple is on the blu-ray supports list, it is about time they step up and embrace the technology that is far superior to downloads at this time.